Puzzled
by Linwe Elendil
Summary: SG-1 discovers a unique artifact. It's just harmless fun... right? Team fic, with an emphasis on Daniel. Not a one-shot anymore!
1. The Addicted Archeologist

Disclaimer: I do not own Stargate – though my roommate and I have discovered that she's _**very**_ much like Jack, and I'm _**very**_ much like Daniel!

This is just a one shot. Something I wrote way too late last night. I'll explain why at the end.

* * *

"Damn it!" Daniel exclaimed, running a hand through his hair. "Blocked again!"

"How long has he been working on that thing?" Jack asked as he stepped into the archeologist's lab.

"Since we got back from P3X-927," Sam answered, her gaze still fixed on Daniel.

Jack checked his watch. "That was five hours ago!"

"I've tried to help him, but he won't let me close enough to work on it."

"I thought we didn't find anything important there."

Daniel replied without looking up. "Jack, those people are an ancient derivative of Japanese culture. Their civilization is one of the oldest and most advanced in Earth's history. It stands to reason that they would have artifacts of great importance."

"Still… five hours. Bit on the side of overkill, don't you think?"

"I'm making progress. I can't stop now."

Jack shook his head. "Daniel, you've already gone through half the pages. Isn't that enough for today?"

"No, I have to finish this."

Teal'c walking in the lab, carrying a zat gun. Jack raised his eyebrows.

"I am concerned for Daniel Jackson, Colonel O'Neill. I thought perhaps I could 'shatter him out of it.'"

"That's 'snap him out of it,' Teal'c. And there may be other… less painful ways to do that." He slowly approached Daniel, looking over his shoulder as he worked. "Just looks like a bunch of numbers to me," he told his friend.

"Yes, but they are very complex strings of them. It's so vast… I mean, the possibilities…" The longer he worked, the less he was making sense.

"Daniel, stop. That's an order."

"No," he replied, unflinchingly.

"Oh, fer cryin' out loud." Walking back over to Teal'c, Jack grabbed the zat gun, took careful aim, and shot the archeologist. Daniel fell to the floor – his pen still gripped tightly in his hand. Sam ran over to him, waited until he stopped twitching, then turned back to her CO.

"Was that really necessary, Colonel?"

"What?" Jack was unapologetic. "You think I should've let him keep going with this?"

"It's just a game, sir. At least, that's what the natives told us."

Daniel groaned.

"Game, my ass. It's addicting. And I, for one, haven't forgotten what Daniel was like when he got hooked on that sarcophagus." He reached over and grabbed the papers on the archeologist's desk. "This is one thing that the public should _never_ get their hands on."

Jack turned on his heel and thrust the zat gun at Teal'c before walking out the door. The stoic Jaffa followed, his frown deepening.

Daniel sat up abruptly, wincing. Sam helped him back to his seat, carefully prying the pen from his stiff fingers.

"Are you all right?"

"I think so," Daniel said, looking around his cluttered work space. "Where's…?"

"The Colonel took them. He thinks they're too dangerous." Daniel cradled his still-throbbing head.

"He's probably right."

"What did you say it was called again?" Sam asked, taking the seat next to her friend.

"The word the natives used doesn't have a direct translation, so I don't really know…"

"Well, what did they call it?"

Daniel pinched the bridge of his nose before shoving his glasses back in place.

"Sudoku."

* * *

Am I the only one who thinks Daniel would get hooked on Sudoku?! I usually do a few puzzles before I go to sleep, and I had a hard time stopping last night. That's what gave me the idea…

Hope you liked it!


	2. The Confused Colonel

Disclaimer: Same as before. Nothing to see here. You can go about your business. Move along.

* * *

Jack reached for his cup of coffee, grimacing at how light it was. Sure enough, when he put it to his lips, it was empty. He scowled at the bottom of the mug, wishing there was someone who could get him a refill. Sighing as he realized how lazy he was being, he stood, knocking some papers to the floor. _Those reports had better not be out of order_, he grumbled inwardly. As he leaned over, however, he noticed that all that had fallen was the parchment he had confiscated from Daniel. Curiosity got the better of him for a moment, and he scanned them as he picked them up. Each page had two 9x9 square grids – one in an alien dialect, and the other filled partially with numbers. He flipped to the first page in confusion, hoping for some sort of explanation. He just couldn't see why random numbers would have had Daniel enthralled for over five hours. Not that it took a lot to get Daniel so focused that he needed to be reminded to eat…

That was when he found it. One sentence of Daniel's chicken scratch below paragraphs of alien writing. "Numbers 1-9 must be placed (but not repeated) in each of the vertical and horizontal lines." Added later, he found, "(And in each 3x3 square)."

"What?" Jack blurted out. "That makes no sense, even for Daniel." He flipped to the next page, his eyes scanning the first completed puzzle he could find. It took him a minute to realize what the instructions had tried to clarify, but when he did, he cocked his head. "Well, that can't be too hard." Turning to the last page Daniel had been working on, Jack grabbed his pen – his empty coffee cup forgotten as he sat back down.

Three hours and four puzzles later (translating the alien symbols to numbers on the next few pieces of parchment had proved harder than he could have anticipated), an alarm rang through the SGC.

"Unscheduled off-world activation. General Hammond and Colonel O'Neill, please report to the gate room."

"Oh, for cryin' out loud!" Jack yelled, his concentration broken. He was less than a dozen numbers away from completing the last puzzle, but now it would have to wait. Getting quickly to his feet, he stormed from his office. "This had better be good!"

When he got back from his meeting with the Tokra, two hours later, Jack sat at his desk, rubbing the back of his head. He had one hour to be ready for SG-1's latest mission.

"Well, at least I've got time to finish that – " It was then that he noticed something was missing. He lifted up the various piles of new and old paperwork that littered his work space. "What the…?" What he had only suspected became clear in the next few seconds.

The puzzles were gone.

"Damn."

* * *

Who stole them? And why? Any guesses?

Yes, there will be more! :-)


End file.
